Re: constantly missing and lost mail

I am very disappointed with your response and disgusted, too. The people who write to me using your POSTA's horrible 'services', don't necessarily let me know in advance that they are sending me something by snail mail. It's when they have already sent something on it's way that they tell me by email to expect a post and what might be it's contents. Hence, I can't and wouldn't want them to go through a totally unnecessary expense of requesting them to send whatever it is that they send, using Registered mail.

This demand by you (POSTA), is totally unwarranted and uncalled for and just proves my point that POSTA in Mombasa is a completely 3rd class, or even lower, operation. Of course, if POSTA is going to reimburse me for the cost of the registered mail just so that they can fix responsibility for wayward mail, I'm quite willing to try and ask my various known and unknown correspondents to use the registered facility. Why is it so difficult to reign in your own incompetent workers? You should know them better since POSTA hires them.

Regarding your second point of picking my mail from my box at GPO. This is highly inconvenient for me as I do not come into town very often and not as far as the GPO (hardly). The traffic and the parking is insane. But, how may I ask is this inconveniencing me going to help you in monitoring your horrible and very inhumane staff, may I know?

Because, of this nonsense, I was told to pick up a registered mail from the GPO yesterday. So, let me relate my misadventures while trying to do this very simple exercise.

First, please keep in mind that I am middle aged and disabled with multiple disabilities which you and your various minions seem to prefer to ignore. Since there is no parking easily available at the front or side of the GPO, I am constantly told to use the parking at the Parcels office and then ask the various staff of GPO there to call the head postmaster (whoever that is), to come to my aid. This I did and fortunately for me, yesterday, there was accompanying me a young very pregnant lady with two small children, who is herself not feeling too well and has been told by her Dr. to keep movements to a minimum. Alas, for her it was not to be! Because, when I went into the parcels/EMS office I asked a man behind the EMS counter to please call a Mr. Ahmad (the postmistress at Mkomani had told me to get him), from the GPO. This man was not at all in a hurry to do anything and told us to have a seat and wait till he finds the time to do so. He seemed to be completely oblivious of the fact that we might also be in a hurry and didn't want to have a 'picnic' with small kids in the waiting area, either. Finally, after asking him a number of times to please hurry or use one of the phones to achieve his purpose, he left to go into the bowels of GPO and disappeared for a fairly long time.

So, I decided to call Mkomani post office and ask the post mistress to please do something about this and she in turn asked me to give my phone to the cashier of EMS. They had quite a lengthy conversation (at my expense), after which the illusive Mr. Ahmad finally materialized.

What happened next, as far as I am concerned, was totally unwarranted and an exercise by POSTA to deliberately frustrate and annoy a client. Because this Mr. Ahmad first asked me to accompany him to the main GPO (as though we didn't know our way), then changed his mind when I told him why it was necessary to personally be there to pick up my registered mail since I can't walk for long distances at times and on uneven surfaces. At this point he asked me for my ID which I gave to him. Then he asked us to wait at the same EMS place for his return.

Well, he did return but after nearly 20 minutes, but, only with a blue card (I had not had time to pick up my registered mail card - pink - from Mkomani the day before or in the morning, either, but was told that as long as I gave my box number and name with ID, I would be given my registered mail), and no mail. He asked me to sign the thing, returned my ID and told me that I would HAVE to accompany him to the GPO myself to be handed over my registered mail. Since, I wasn't in a condition to walk all the way to the GPO registered mail office, he agreed to let the young lady accompanying me go with him instead to be given my mail.

Now, why and since when does the GPO have this rule of having to physically 'see' the person to whom the registered mail belongs? I thought that anybody whom I trust can go with my ID to collect my registered mail for me. I am now quite sure of what my brother told me - that somebody at POSTA is victimizing me deliberately.

I observed another revelation when I studied the envelope that carried my mail. I noticed that it had been posted from Bangalore, India on the 6th of April 2011 and reached Mombasa on the 13th of April 2011, yet, the registered mail card, though dated 13/4/2011, arrived at Mkomani post office on the 28th April 2011, a whole 2 weeks later. Despite it being a registered mail?!!!!

So, when POSTA tells me to ask my correspondents to register their mail to me, it does not justify it's reasoning for even Registered mail can get lost - especially mine. In fact, I was not even expecting this particular mail from India. It's just by good fortune that it was registered, but, since I was not expecting it I would not even have known about it if POSTA had, like quite a lot of my other mail, 'lost' it. At least, they seemed to be very averse to part with it even when I personally tried to go and pick it up at GPO.

About renting a box at Mkomani - even if one was available, it would be completely impractical for me to change box numbers after all these years. People whom I can't even remember know and keep in touch with me using the present one.

Please, do not try to pass the buck. I know that even if I had a box at Mkomani, it is still GPO which sorts mail for all the other post offices around. So the problem of lost, misplaced and other misadventures of our mail will still continue. The daft sorters are still the same old semi and illiterate, incompetent persons at your GPO! Do something about that instead on inconveniencing your renters to do this, that and the other, please.

Very disgusted with your 'services',
Raziya

On 4/28/2011 12:39 PM, hpmrmombasa@posta.co.ke wrote:

Dear Razia, We are sorry for the inconvinience occassioned to you. To help us serve you better, kindly assit as follows:- 1. Advice the people who send you correspondence to register them, this will enable us trace your correspondence and fix responsibility. 2.Pick your mail from your box at Mombasa GPO,this will enable us to monitor our staff closely. 3.Rent a box at Mkomani.  Striving to serve you better.  Mariam.I.Ali 

Constantly missing and lost mail....

There is a problem with our Mombasa GPO's sorting office. The people populating that office are either semi- or illiterate or half blind or under the influence of questionable substances! Due to them, I have lost at least 2 letters since the beginning of this year from the USA.

The latest one was posted from there on the 4th of April 2011 and it still has not reached Mombasa. Unfortunately, I am not the only person who pays a hefty rental every year to Posta, only to have my numerous mails either misplaced or disappearing altogether. There are countless others out there who have a similar problem with our POSTA.

Since my last missing mail from the USA, POSTA's officialdom asked me to tell my brother to send his mail by registered post so they could track it. But, to do this will cost my brother $15 which we can ill afford. So, is this some kind of blackmail that if we don't do POSTA's bidding, they will constantly lose our mail if it is sent by normal channels?

There are also irresponsible members of the public who, when they get a letter in their boxes which does not belong to them, simply throw it away or carry it around for days before re-posting the thing (hence, the sometimes soiled condition of our mail), finally. From this point on, POSTA's sorting staff, start the whole process and IF we're lucky, we finally get our long lost mail or if they are under any one of the mental conditions mentioned in the first paragraph, the letter will be lost forever, never to be seen or heard of again!

I've had such things happen to my letters over the years and now it is even more easy to know the fate of them. I know that my brother posted the letter on the 4th of April 2011 because he emailed me about it. And since it takes 10 days for mail from the USA to get here (one gets the feeling that it either hitch-hikes or walks), this period is now over but, I still haven't got my mail.

Why do I constantly have these missing mail problems despite, as I've been told, that my box is under investigations? So, if this is the case, it can't be my box suddenly swallowing my mail, but, it has to be the sorters......, I think. Can POSTA please employ responsible and educated people there?

And how is POSTA going to deal with this latest missing mail issue short of demanding the we use their registered and expensive 'service'? The pain and headache that they cause has to be experienced to be believed.

Get your act together, POSTA!

Lots of frustration ......

As I write this, I'm holding on to my landline phone with Orange Nairobi, trying to get my Orange modem loaded. The reason I had to call their Nairobi offices was because NONE of their Mombasa employees whose numbers I have are answering their phones!

The sms confirmations, etc., that one has to go through to load a bundle and activate it is also not working - countrywide.

When Orange finally did something about the modem signal problem near my place and I can now use their modem, the smses for loading and confirming don't seem to work in a reliable fashion.

Why aren't the Mombasa employees of Orange Telkom picking up their phones? After all it is Saturday and when I first started calling them it was before lunchtime. It took two calls to their Nairobi offices and over an hour before a guy called Paul finally solved and activated my bundle.

Some of their employees, whenever I call them, tell me to call 100 or 121. These hardly ever get answered and when they do, it's an automated voice which tells you to press this, that and the other number to get various 'services'. Now, I'm a hearing impaired person and would like to deal with a human on the other end whom I can request to repeat what s/he, just said in case I didn't understand. How can I ask a machine to do this? Why isn't Orange Telkom a handicapped friendly company, especially since they are into communications?

They should be the first ones to take such a disability seriously. There are many people out there who have similar problems like mine. I am not the only one, though, I might be the only one who is the most vocal about it.

Please, get your act together, Orange Telkom.

Is Orange Telkom operating with justice?

Since the beginning of February, I've been having connecting issues with the Orange livebox and despite having been assured of the many days that I've been offline (not being able to connect to the Internet), since the beginning of the second week of February 2011, I still have not got my rebate from them. Why?

Also, I would have used their modem, if I had a signal where I live, but, despite having complained about that, nothing has been done about that, either. In the process, the over 270 Mb that I had on it expired. So, who is to blame for this? And will I get a rebate for this, too?

Orange Telkom does not consider such things important enough to address and their Regional Manager, Mr. Munene, just told me that it was just one of these things that we have to put up with where 'technology' is concerned! Is it really that, or the incompetence of Orange Telkom?

For now, I am having second thoughts about re-subscribing to my 'livebox' and am writing this using their modem at their Nyali Orange shop since I don't have a signal to be able to use this at home. So, I had to lug my laptop to their offices to be able to deal with a lot of emails at my own cost and had to pay a further 150/- to buy the minimum bundle of a 100 Megabytes. That is when I found out that my previous over 270 Mb had been 'swallowed'.

For this company's information, I would have used this modem when I could not go online with the livebox, but due to it's own incompetence and don't care attitude, I can and could not, yet, the customer has to pay for and suffer the consequences of this. Why?

Probably, Mr. Munene, thinks in terms of a few hundred shillings as 'nothing', but, that is not the case for the majority of Kenyans for his information. If they give a 'service' than it has to be an accountable and honest one.

And how long is Orange Telkom going to take in giving me a rebate for all the time that I've been unable to go online using the livebox? And when will and if ever, is the signal near my place, going to improve?